Light commercial vehicle registrations hit a new record of 375,687 units in 2016, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).
The van market has now expanded for four consecutive years, but it’s worth noting that total registrations last year were just 1% higher than in 2015. As this graph shows, the rush to buy new vans is definitely starting to slow down:
Indeed, there was a marked slowdown in December, when registrations fell by 10.,4% compared to December 2016.
A closer look at the figures shows that last year’s growth was driven by pickups, rather than vans. Sales of the fashionable four-wheelers rose by 17.6% to 47,715 last year.
Without this uplift, my calculations suggest that total LCV registrations would have fallen by about 3,000 units last year. What this means is that new van registrations did fell in 2016, albeit only slightly.
Last year’s top sellers
I’ve written about Ford’s dominance of the UK LCV market before, and the SMMT’s full-year figures show that this situation remains unchanged. Here are the top ten LCVs for last month and for 2016 as a whole:
2017 promises to be a more uncertain year for the LCV market. Although sales remain strong, I wouldn’t be surprised if the pullback seen in December continues, allowing registrations to move closer to historic average levels.
Whatever happens, we’ll continue to keep you up to date on developments in the van market here at vanrental.co.uk.
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